The Soap Opera - an endangered species?

The soap opera has been around for over 70 years, pre-dating television. Even people who have never watched one are familiar with the genre, and very likely familiar with some of the characters. Who hasn’t heard of Erica Kane?

In the early years of TV, soap operas really were sponsored by soap companies, and their earnings helped support the prime-time programming.

But times have changed. Prime-time shows are now the ones that bring in the money, and soaps have decreased drastically in recent years, both in absolute numbers and in ratings. Days of Our Lives, which has run for 44 years, recently laid off stars Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn (Marlena and John Black), and other shows have required their top actors to take pay cuts.

Rumours have been circulating for some time that the soap opera is about to go the way of the dodo bird, to be replaced by cheaper talk shows and “reality TV”. The audience of its heyday – stay-at-home mothers who passed their love of the show on to their daughters – is gone, and the networks’ attempts to lure new, young, viewers appears to be a failure.

And it is quite possible that they are right, that we are witnessing the end of an era. But I wonder if this recession, depression, whatever you want to call it, could actually end up saving the soaps.

Every day we hear of thousands more people losing jobs. And certainly many of them will be out looking for more work. But a number, who really don’t need to work, will decide to stay home until things get better. And, since men still earn more than women, and since women are still considered to be responsible for child care, most of those will be women.

This is not a good thing. But it may be a cloud with a silver lining for the soap opera. We could be back to a time when there are women with free time in the afternoon to watch the soaps, and to pass this on to their daughters as our mothers did.

What the networks do with this is up to them. If they fire their best actors and writers, and end up with shows no one wants to watch, it won’t matter. However, if they put together fun, interesting shows, they will have an audience just looking for a little escape and love in the afternoon.